Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

It’s not hopeless, and we’re not helpless.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Maybe you would prefer that we take Joelle’s side in ALL CAPS?

Dead end MAGA boomers crying about Talyor Swift being a Dem is my kind of music. Turn it up.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Democrats are back in array!

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

You are here: Home / Absent Friends / “I’m Smiling Because I Want to Lift Up the Legacy of Derrick Bell”

“I’m Smiling Because I Want to Lift Up the Legacy of Derrick Bell”

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“Trolling my own blog”, because fighting lies with truth is important. And if you don’t want to take my word, know in advance that Rachel Maddow approved this message…

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Via LGF; hat tip to commentor Gnomedad

(Also, Professor Bell did know LeGuin’s short story “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”.)

Reader Interactions

28Comments

  1. 1.

    Bruce S

    One of the reasons I DVR Ed is because, of the three MSNBC prime time weekday shows (at least in my time zone Rev Al is on in the mid-afternoon) big, old blustery, huntin’ & fishin’ white guy Ed from the upper Midwest consistently has the best African-American commentary and guests. Much better than either Lawrence or Rachel. Also far more union spokespeople.

  2. 2.

    Rita R.

    The class and dignity shown by people like Mrs. Bell and Sandra Fluke in contrast to the vile rants and disgusting smears of Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly, Palin, Malkin, etc. speaks volumes.

  3. 3.

    James E. Powell

    @Rita R.:

    I agree with you. But I wonder if their class, dignity, and decency speak volumes to the great mass of Americans who vote. Not for the first time, I do not get the American people. Do they agree with all this, or are they just to numb to care?

  4. 4.

    BGinCHI

    Derrick Bell, Great American Patriot.

    Bill Orally, Sean Fatass Hannity, Sarah Palin: dustbin of history.

    What did they ever do for their fellow Americans? Took their money, lied to them, spent no effort on improving anything.

    Hope that judgmental afterlife they’re so fond of exists for them.

  6. 6.

    mk3872

    But it must be working for the right-wing because today’s polls for Obama were TERRIBLE in a re-elect year. 46% and 41% approvals? All that matters now is that President Romney doesn’t select a right-wing lunatic as VP and the Firebaggers will get their wish: No more President Obama and they’ll blame the loss on Obama not listening to the left-wing civil libertarian freakazoids.

  8. 8.

    Marcellus Shale, Public Dick

    well you know why the right wing is attacking a deceased harvard professor, don’t you?

    someone has a video of brietbart hugging whitey!

  9. 9.

    Herbal Infusion Bagger

    I think LeGuin needs to add a sequel to her story titled

    “The Ones Who Want to Move to Omelas and Make It a Gated Community,”

    …because there’s a significant fraction of the GOP’s 27% base who think that if there isn’t some poor human suffering needlessly for the sake of a system, then what’s the point?

    (Mind you, Omelas might be a bit too idyllic and socialistic for them.)

  11. 11.

    Rita R.

    @James E. Powell:

    I think they get drowned out. Mrs. Bell has only appeared on Ed’s show and Fluke’s just done a few interviews — she probably reached more people through The View than anything else, really.

    But most Americans aren’t paying close attention to this stuff and just hear snippets of the accusations that get repeated and reinforced by the right wing media machine. So they hear Fluke was arguing for taxpayers to pay for her birth control and Obama had an association with a racially radical professor in law school. If they dig deeper, they can get the truth from news reports that accurately cover the stories, or from Fluke and Mrs. Bell in their interviews, but many, many won’t. In fact, Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly and the rest count on it.

  12. 12.

    mk3872

    @Mnemosyne: I’ll take that explanation for 1 bad poll – today’s WaPo. But it’s tough to explain 2 on the same day and the NY Times poll was even WORSE. Not good.

  13. 13.

    mk3872

    @David Koch: Look at Gallup’s report from February: Obama is stuck @ 45% for the month and one good weekend report will not change the fact that he is WELL below where he needs to be for re-election.

    Thank goodness Romney will likely turn out to be a centrist when he’s done pandering to the right-wing base.

  14. 14.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @mk3872:

    I think you’re worrying too much. One handicap I think all of these polls need to have, whatever numbers they’re showing, is that Obama has not remotely begun campaigning in earnest. I’m going to at least wait for that to start happening before I start fretting about the numbers.

  15. 15.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @Herbal Infusion Bagger:

    Maybe we could combine Omelas’ power source, Pleasantville’s attitudes about sex and race, Stepford’s social conformity, and Mordor’s climate. Republicans would come flocking.

  16. 16.

    hhex65

    @mk3872: Yessir, this is one horse race that is going to go right down to the wire– which is great because I work in the advertising sales division at ComCast.

  17. 17.

    some guy

    the Widow Bell makes a good point. why should she be surprised (and saddened) that the 2012 Republicans are spitting on a veteran?

    first tenured African American at Harvard Law. check

    In 1959, the government asked him to resign his membership in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) because it was thought that his objectivity, and that of the department, might be compromised or called into question. Bell quit from his job rather than giving up his NAACP membership.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derrick_Bell . check

    Bell’s critique represented a challenge to the dominant liberal and conservative position on civil rights, race and the law. He employed three major arguments in his analyses of racial patterns in American law: constitutional contradiction, the interest convergence principle, and the price of racial remedies. His book Race, Racism and American Law, now in its sixth edition, has been continually in print since 1973

    Now, it has taken all these years for many Americans to understand that the gravity, that mistake that took place before the Civil War and why the Civil War had to really start changing America. What Barack Obama seems to want to do is go back before those days when we were in different classes based on income, based on color of skin.

  18. 18.

    Linda Featheringill

    Maybe the message will get through. Consider that Obama has had EVERYTHING thrown at him for 3+ years and yet 3/4 of the country thinks he is personally a nice guy.

    You can’t fool all the people all the time.

  19. 19.

    AxelFoley

    @some guy:

    What Barack Obama seems to want to do is go back before those days when we were in different classes based on income, based on color of skin.

    You sound like Sarah Palin with that shit.

  20. 20.

    Schlemizel

    @James E. Powell:
    I think the majority just don’t pay attention, don’t see it as their fight. They buy the “both side do it” bullshit because they are only half listening. They think Rush was mean but “that girl shouldn’t expect us to pay for her schtuping, nobody pays for mine”. They don’t think Obama is a radical but “Obamacare is the entry to soshallism”. They may even be able to articulate why they believe this bullshit (most probably can’t) but hearing their explanation would just make you weep for the future.

  21. 21.

    Schlemizel

    @mk3872:
    calm down, its a couple of days short of 8 months till election day and 80% of the population is not even paying attention.

    You’ll have lots of time to freak out about firebaggers, ease into it.

  23. 23.

    Marc

    I don’t get the attitude in this thread. The things that the Republicans are doing right now are deeply unpopular. The disaffected online left is a tiny and shrinking minority. The mask has dropped and we’re seeing the actual stakes for what they are.

  24. 24.

    Svensker

    @Marc:

    The things that the Republicans are doing right now are deeply unpopular. The disaffected online left is a tiny and shrinking minority. The mask has dropped and we’re seeing the actual stakes for what they are.

    In my immediate circle there are three “disaffected left” who think Obama is the spawn of Satan now (they all voted for him in 2008) but because of the Right’s wackiness on Fluke et al, as well as the war-mongering on Iran, have all decided to vote for Obama in 2012 after all. Before the Great Republican Vagina Freakout two of them were going to vote for Ron Paul “because there’s no difference between the parties” and one wasn’t going to vote at all. Anecdotal but probably not unusual.

  25. 25.

    rikyrah

    Fast Talking Dyson on Caribou Barbie last night on the Ed Show.

    ” She is a woman of manifest unintelligence”.

    BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

    He can get on the nerves, but every once in awhile, he just cracks me up.

  26. 26.

    quannlace

    Mind you, Omelas might be a bit too

    It’s been yeeeaaaars since I read that story. Had to wiki it just to remember the plot.
    Am very happy to see LeGuin is still with us.

  27. 27.

    Tone In DC

    I’m just glad that Ed had Mrs. Bell on the show. I’m also glad that Ms. Fluke has gotten her side of the story out there.

    As for November, I think Romneybot3000 will be the nominee, depite Frothy Rick and the cold-blooded historian. And the more the public sees of Mitt, the less they like him. McCain was Thomas Jefferson compared to RMoney.

  28. 28.

    different-church-lady

    @Svensker:

    In my immediate circle there are three “disaffected left” who think Obama is the spawn of Satan now (they all voted for him in 2008) but because of the Right’s wackiness on Fluke et al, as well as the war-mongering on Iran, have all decided to vote for Obama in 2012 after all.

    Clearly the pollsters are under-weighting the political drama queen demographic.

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